Biggest Loser / Diet / Entertainment / Weight Loss

Biggest Loser casting tips (season 13)

Matthew McNutt4,631 Comments

Biggest Loser is now casting for season 13!  Casting calls have been posted on the all new Biggest Loser casting website.  Basically, this post is a collection of tips I’ve written based on my experience making the cast of season three, as well as some links to casting advice I don’t think you should miss:

  • NBC has posted casting information and the application here.  They have all the casting news and information on a special blog just for Biggest Loser casting, which you can find here.
  • Pete Thomas, the season 2 $100,000 winner has some of the best casting call advice out there, which you can find at his website, Winning Man.
  • Jen Kerns, a season three contestant like myself, and a doctor for the show for seasons four and five, has also put together some fantastic casting advice that you can read here.
  • Holland, a casting director for Biggest Loser sent me a bunch of great advice on how to be casted, you can find it here.  She updated them October, 2009.
  • I’ve been posting these casting tips for the last few seasons and they always seem to end up with thousands of comments; just about every season has contestants that were hanging out on here, reading and giving each other thoughts and advice.  You can find the most recent one here.
  • If you’re dealing with disappointment about not being cast, then check out my post on Biggest Loser casting disappointment.

One of the questions I hear a lot is about money … how do contestants afford to be away from home and work for months at a time? I don’t know what it is now, but when I was a contestant there was a $500 a week stipend for cast members on the ranch. When you received the check you could cash it and spend it, send it home, save it, whatever. All airplane tickets, hotel accommodations, etc., for the contestants and potential cast members are taken care of by NBC, and during the casting process it self there was a $50 per diem to cover food costs.

Another question is timing; typically a season lasts for about 8-9 months. About four of this is spent in filming; if you last all the way until the final three or four, you could be away from home for as much as four months or so. Once the ranch filming wraps and the last few contestants are sent home, however, there is still another four or five months that all the contestants have to continue losing weight until the finale. In addition, potential cast members are flown out to California a couple weeks before filming begins for the final round of casting, medical checkups, psychological evals, etc. NBC brings out more people than what they need and the cast is not finalized until filming literally begins. People have been cut at the last minute and replacements flown in with hardly any time to spare. Nothing is in stone until it’s on camera!

When will you hear from Biggest Loser about your video? There is no way of knowing. I heard back a few weeks after I sent it in, but even after that it’s a big waiting game. If you get a phone number or email from a casting direction, definitely drop them a line/call every couple weeks to find out if you’re still in the running or what’s going on. Schedules and plans change almost every day, so it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. If you don’t hear back within a month I would think your video didn’t make the cut. That doesn’t mean you can’t send in another or visit a casting call – it’s just up to you!

Finally, here’s my video application tips! This is by no means a recipe for success; it’s based on my video application and the conversations I had with casting directors out in LA in between things. I was pretty curious about the whole process so I was pumping them for info even after filming began. I’m such a nerd!

  • They’ve usually decided if they’re interested in you within the first 30-60 seconds of your video, so front load it with your best stuff. Make it interesting! Start off with something funny or exciting!
  • Keep in mind, if you’re going to be cast, your video is going to be watched hundreds of times by producers, executives, casting directors, etc. If it bores you or your friends the second or third time watching it … put some more time into it!
  • Special effects? Don’t bother! We’ve all got video editing software with all sorts of bells and whistles on our home computers, but fancy transitions are not going to sell you to people who do video editing for a living. In fact, it can distract from who you are. I’m a video editing nerd and I didn’t use any special effects other than putting my name and contact info on as a subtitle at the beginning.
  • Don’t bother talking about why you need to lose weight. When I first started filming my audition video I started describing all of my health reasons for losing weight – but when I was watching it back, I realized … they don’t need to hear it! One look at me was all they needed to know I needed to lose weight! Show them why you need to lose it; I said I needed to lose weight for my kids, and then I followed it with a minute or two of the best footage I could find of me with wrestling with my three boys. We probably filmed half an hour of that insanity and I grabbed the cutest, loudest, and funniest few moments for the audition video. Your physical need to lose weight is not nearly as interesting as who or what your losing the weight for.
  • Live loud! Reality TV is over the top, dramatic, and filled with loud personalities. They need to see that on your video! I wanted them to know that even though I was morbidly obese I was up to the challenge of the crazy competitions and workouts – so I threw on a bunch of clips from my different youth group activities; me getting slimed, snowtubing, playing paintball, screaming at events, being on stage, running around … you get the idea. Other contestants did things appropriate to their lives; Tim from Oregon had himself spinning out on his Harley, Tim from Delaware recruited his elementary school class to do things with him, Heather Hanson filmed herself running around in a sports bra all day doing her household chores and errands. The less talking and more action you can have, the better (in my opinion)!
  • If you have footage or photos of yourself thin, include those at some point on the video. If you can show them what your after will be, then do it!

Remember, enjoy the conversation here and know that I will never compromise your anonymity – not to NBC, 3Ball, Casting Directors or anyone. You can post anonymously, or you can leave your names and contact information … just remember that NBC likes to be the one announcing their cast for the show, so if you start identifying yourself publicly as a finalist, you’ll probably find yourself eliminated from the casting process. Be aware that casting directors do check in at my blog to see what people are saying, get a feel for what questions are going on out there, and sometimes to give us updates. Good luck to everyone … and let me know if you make the show! I get a kick out of hearing about the different contestants that have hung out on my blog before making the show! ;)

 

 

4,631 thoughts on “Biggest Loser casting tips (season 13)”

  1. I went to Holland's FB page and voted… why do they ask us to vote for a city when they've been pre-selected? I have the choice of driving 3 hours to Nashville, 5 hours to Kansas City or 6 hours to Chicago. Crap! Last year it was 2 hours to St. Louis so it wasn't so bad when I made the return trip for the interview.

    Like

  3. bkbrp,

    Thanks for letting me know.

    Sorry about that. I copied and pasted Holland's post, but I see when it was pasted, it removed the space between the link and the dash in her sentence.

    Here's just the link for everyone else.

    http://bit.ly/IVGaOb

    Like

  4. Does it kinda look like you can vote as many times as you want?

    I guess I don't understand why they are doing it this way….

    just to pump people up?

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  5. <blockquote cite="#commentbody-48497">

    Tempted :

    Does it kinda look like you can vote as many times as you want?

    I guess I don’t understand why they are doing it this way….

    just to pump people up?

    I voted twice, as it gave the opportunity to and there are three of their locations, I could consider.

    Possibly, they're looking to see where the most interested people would consider coming out to.

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  6. I just keep putting Nashville as my first and second choice….that's the closest drive for me! lol

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  7. @Should have been a PI

    I think on the surface they are looking at locations of interested people…. but I'm always a bit skeptical of motives! Do you think they can track people when they vote? Just like the "pre-registering" I don't think it is necessary.

    Like

  9. NOTORIOUS BFG's CC TIP OF THE DAY:

    VIP Passes are over rated. If you can't be first, show up last. Go late and have a big cup of coffee before you go. You'll have no lines and you'll be wired and fresh when everyone else is tired from being there all day. I have yet to hear of a CC shutting Hopefuls out, so don't believe that rumor either.

    MORE NOTORIOUS BFG's CC TIPS OF THE DAY to come…lol

    Like

  10. I agree with the VIP pass thing 🙂 I've gone both with and without them….

    Plus- I would rather sit at a table with people who DIDN"T get them- then a bunch of people who did- chances are better you will stand out!

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  11. Interesting. I was at a table with someone who had one. I did stand out and was questioned after they made everyone leave.

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  14. @Tempted

    I agree about being skeptical of Holland's / their motives. I was as well (I'm always 2nd guessing people's intentions), especially, whereas Holland is the only one who posted this information (up to right now). Barb didn't put it on her facebook page (she's even with Holland @ TBL Resort this week), Holland's casting partner Kerry didn't, DJ didn't, Casting Duo didn't. It is on BL Casting facebook page, but I believe Holland has a lot of input on that page. I was wondering, as more time went by, if Holland was only working on her own to keep interest alive (on her own and with minimal information she was allowed to reveal). She has proven in the past, she lives her job.

    I explained to my mother last night, Holland may have a way to set up a counter to the form, so she gets a count of each city. And, of course, maybe not.

    I agree the "pre-registering" definitely seems to be overkill, but it’s another way for them to expand their email mailing list for all their solicitations of BL and all their other shows too.

    I just tried to go on the form to verify something and received this error message.

    “Oops, something went wrong.

    The form "The Biggest Loser 14 Casting Tour…Coming Soon!" is no longer accepting responses.

    Try contacting the owner of the form if you think this is a mistake.”

    Oops, maybe Holland jumped the gun on this one…

    Like

  15. I just tried to go on Holland's form again to verify something and received this error message.

    “Oops, something went wrong.

    The form “The Biggest Loser 14 Casting Tour…Coming Soon!” is no longer accepting responses.

    Try contacting the owner of the form if you think this is a mistake.”

    Oops, maybe Holland jumped the gun on this one…

    Like

  16. @Big Fat Guy

    I was at the last table in, for my last casting call and still NOTHING. It must have been the coffee (or actually, the lack thereof) that cost me the call back.

    Obviously, I am only kidding about the coffee. I really believe it was because I had the same CD as in the previous CC and I don't think she'll ever give me a call back.

    I think they need to rotate / shuffle the CD's, so to give applicants a better chance of making an impression. I believe many of us would agree to this one. It's a lot of our time standing in line, only to discover you're repeating the same CD (like I have) over and over again.

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  17. <blockquote cite="#commentbody-48421">

    SuperCyber15 :

    Hoo boy, I’m in North Dakota! At a cousin’s wedding. If anyone is here in ND, come and party with us at the reception, haha!

    Looks like SuperCyber must have found a job in the oil fields of Williston cause he appears to not be returning. He's not written us since Saturday. He must be too busy drilling that oil and making such big bucks doing so, to spend time with us.

    What will he do without being able to watch all his reality shows?

    Like

  18. This was tweeted earlier today by @BLcastingteam.

    Thanks to everyone who voted! So many of you gave your input that we hit capacity on our form before the deadline!

    Like

  23. May 9th, 2012 at 22:31 | #28

    Your comment is awaiting moderation.

    @Quikwits

    Great idea Quikwits! If you haven’t spoken to him, Matt is normally more than willing to help us all out.

    In case Nanny doesn’t have it, I’ll list the email address here for her.

    McNuttBlog@gmail.com

    Like

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